


Translucence In Reverse

by OceanPlanet



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, POV Lance (Voltron), Vampire Lance (Voltron), Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 06:43:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18277907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OceanPlanet/pseuds/OceanPlanet
Summary: “I don’t understand,” Shiro says, and it’s as soft as the night. That far away from stars it’s always night.It’s easy to be unreal. He doesn’t know if it’s shyness that makes him stay quiet. He wonders if he could recognize it at all. It’s hard to tell when your feet aren’t touching the ground.





	Translucence In Reverse

The problem with starvation, one that pushes on Lance's bones in the dead of night, when the lights don't filter out blue parts of the spectrum, when the silence ricochets down the empty corridors, is that it makes you tired. It pours water over the fire in your fingertips and practices tying and untying knots on your tongue; it plays with the balance in your ears and ads to the breeze singing around your ankles.

It is the opposite of being grounded. It’s a dance that never lets your toes touch the metal floor. It’s easy to feel unreal in the absence of cold.

“I don’t understand,” Shiro says, and it’s as soft as the night. That far away from stars it’s always night.

It’s easy to be unreal. He doesn’t know if it’s shyness that makes him stay quiet. He wonders if he could recognize it at all. It’s hard to tell when your feet aren’t touching the ground.

But then Shiro comes closer and the heat has this dual quality, this solid evidence of the presence of another body. It’s not cold enough for him to be sure, but he thinks he finds it comforting.

“Lance, I don’t know what you mean.” He’s trying to keep eye contact, to tell him something with the directedness of it perhaps, but it’s too easy to look down.

A hand is on his shoulder, and he doesn’t know if that’s comforting. Now or never, isn’t it.  
“I need to eat blood. Like, drink it. For food,” he says, without really looking up.

The pause is heavy, and long, and inevitable.

“You need to drink blood?”

“That’s what I said twice, Shiro,” he snaps, and then snaps his goddamn mouth shut.

“I’m just trying to understand,” Shiro says, not angry, not ever angry. He puts his galra arm on Lance’s other shoulder, without the weight of it, and it’s comforting. It wouldn’t be for everyone, but it is for Lance.

“Come on ,” Shiro nudges him towards his bed, probably still warm, the duvet thrown back but somehow still too neatly aligned with the bed frame, the pillow skewed diagonally in the center, “Let’s sit down,” and once they sit side by side, Lance facing the wall and Shiro facing Lance, his human arm on his shoulder and Lance ignoring it, he realizes just how substantial the breeze at his feet is. That’s why he chose the middle of the night, because he hoped that he could sneak out while his nerves are asleep, too unconscious to deter him.

It hasn’t been that long; he’s alive. But it has been long and he’s been trying to loosen his mouth for weeks now.

Sitting that close, he fears that it will loosen sharp and white in anonymous shadows, without his will. The heat suddenly becomes more, and faster, and he feels his body respond. It’s discomfort more than anything else, but it still makes him put a hand tight over his lips and swallow.

“Lance,” it’s so quiet, almost whispered, “Talk to me.”

 _I’ve said it_ , he thinks, and thinks that all that follows is obvious. But he knows he should talk about it. Shiro deserves it. He should do it for himself too, he knows. A thumb is moving up and down at the juncture of his shoulder, right at the end of his shirt collar, skin on skin. Shiro’s fingers are colder than his skin. 

He feels the lightest pressure under his chin that makes him look up, and he is reminded of why he should talk about it. Makes him wonder if two gazes locking, for seconds, more than seconds, could ever be explained by chemistry and physics alone.

The finger at his jaw disappears, as if Shiro was having second thoughts about moving at all, quick as the speed of sound. It was his galra hand.

“That’s it,” Lance murmurs, because his mama thought him not to break fragile things, and the air is as brittle as it gets. “I need a lot of it. Relatively a lot. Moderately.”

Is Shiro thinking about how he’s been slower in trainings, slower than the others, about how Hunk gave him his water pouch and told him _You should talk about it if it feels like too much_? He looks tired, he knows he looks tired. Though the color of his skin might as well be off due to the lack of sun.

Oh, he still has one bomb to drop. “It has to be human blood.”

He thinks Shiro knows him enough to know he’s not joking about this.

“What do you need it for?” Shiro asks and then winces, “I mean, I guess I’m just trying to understand – how? I mean, why?” He’s shifting closer.

This time, his silence is selective. He could try to say more, but something in his insists that it can wait, that it’s not urgent, insists that he can choose avoidance once more. He refuses to feel bad about it.

“Okay, that’s okay,” Shiro says, like silk.

There’s something familiar in the way he says it, despite how unfamiliar everything became after that unreal escalation of coincidences, all of them connected and none completely coincidental, middle of the night weeks ago that opened its jaws and took them to stars and the vacuum between them. Lance wonders if it’s night in the desert. He doesn’t think about his family.

“I need, like, two glasses of it a day,” he offers, because a conversation demands the reversal of roles.

“To survive?”

“To be okay.”

And he guesses he understands Shiro too, at least some parts of him, because he senses the question before it comes and holds his hand in the space between them. It’s shaking worse than he thought it would be, but some of that might be nerves.

Later, he’ll tell him he actually needs four glasses, and he’ll share his ideas of solutions; for now he just needs to leave it at that. He’s never before needed to be alone in that and it’s terrifying.

“I can eat it anyhow. In any form,” he says, because he figures he can’t leave it at this that easily. He doesn’t think Shiro would – mind, but it wouldn’t be fair of him.

Shiro’s expression on someone else might be annoying. On him, it’s understanding: it’s comfort, and the hand on Lance’s neck can’t be anything but a grounding weight.

“Yeah?” Shiro asks, then grabs the hand between them and pulls it down to the mattress between their tights. He does it with his galra arm, then drops his other hand from Lance’s neck to cover his palm on the cold, real, real sheet, pulling the galra arm to his side, away.

Before he can think better of it, Lance reaches out with his free hand to cover Shiro’s. Once his fingers touch the metal he’s not sure what’s okay to do. He brushes his knuckles, from wrist down, and then removes his hand.

He thinks he might be blushing, but refuses to feel bad about it.

He knows Shiro got the message. In the dead of night, they understand each other enough.

“Yeah,” he breathes, a reply to the question that will matter later on, in the presence of their team members, in the artificial day, when you can see the ground you stand on. Right now, that’s enough.

They look at each other – he’s sure they look ridiculous. It matters too much for him to care.

 _Okay_ , Shiro murmurs again, then he’s pulling him in and Lance is putting his weigh on his legs again so that he can move closer. Then they’re pressed close, a person to a person, a body to a body, and Lance’s head rests below Shiro’s chin, his arms clasped behind Shiro’s back and Shiro’s hand at his nape, not resting but moving, dragging fingers stirring his hair just like cold might.

Lance doesn’t know what Shiro thinks, doesn’t know what he knows, if his proximity to Shiro’s neck is a coincidence, but that’s not why he came here.

In the night, it’s easy to be unreal. Everything becomes less substantial: facts, conversations, Shiro’s finger swiping over the shell of his ear. Time; the golden string connecting cause and effect cut. 

In the dead of night, details can exist independently, and don’t require a name to be acknowledged.

In the dead of night, Lance comes to a private conclusion: what nights do is make the distinction between real and surreal flexible, so that you can be grounded while dancing in the air. It somehow feels more real. It’s comfort.


End file.
